


The Making of a Story

by northerntrash



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dementia, Durin Family Feels, Fluffy Ending, M/M, references to/character with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4284927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northerntrash/pseuds/northerntrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bilbo finds a case of old family photographs, he becomes determined to find the original owners: what he does not expect is to become quite so involved in their lives, or that those photographs should prove quite so important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Making of a Story

Bilbo was clearing out the stock room when he found it: a small suitcase, barely the length of his forearm, all leather made soft by age and handles that were starting to pull away from the fabric. A fragile thing, but obviously loved at some point, if the dark marks left by copious leather treatment were any indication.

It was obviously an old thing, and looked as if it had been expensive, once, and he ran his fingers over the soft fabric cautiously. He hadn’t ever caught sight of it before, but that in and of itself wasn’t too surprising – the stock room in the charity shop where he worked had been crammed full of stuff for as long as he had been here. According to Bofur, who had taken over as manager some years before, the previous woman who had run it had a habit of putting things to one side, for one reason or another: by the time he had arrived here, there had been a square of floor around the doorway free, the rest of the space taken up by towering piles of _stuff,_ shelving units overflowing with boxes and bags and piles of clothes, the floor taken up by clothing racks and more piles of donations, bits-and-bobs that had long overwhelmed the relatively small space of the back room _._

Bofur had attempted to start clearing out the room some months previously, and they had made good headway, even reaching the opposite wall, though there was still large sections of the room that were virtually inaccessable. There had been some absolute junk in there – bags of clothes ready to be ragged, old electronics with faulty wiring (the most exciting of which had shorted out all the fuses in the shop and the apartment above when they had tried to turn it on), an inexplicable five-foot plastic flamingo which had been tucked underneath one shelving unit, that had taken up an almost ceremonial position next to Bofur’s desk in his office.

As such, a suitcase wasn’t of particular interest, but he put it on the ‘to keep’ pile anyway: there had been some treasures in the trove, after all. A beaded dress that must have been from the forties at the very least; old wedgewood, slightly yellowed but still collectable; several shelves of books, nothing first edition or too rare, but certainly worth something; even a case of good jewellery that the previous manager must have collected over some time – Bilbo couldn’t help but wonder if this back room had been a nest egg for the previous manager as much as anything else, the best of donations hidden away with the worst, in case the shop ever fell on hard times and she was struggling to meet her monthly quota.

The suitcase might have something worth selling in, but given the weight of it he would have to shift through a number of things: even if he didn’t, they did enough trade with arty, hipster types searching for genuine, vintage items – no doubt someone would want to make a shelf or a stand or something similar out of the case, if nothing else.

It eventually came through to Bofur’s office along with the rest of the things sorted to keep, where, due to the space constraints, they did the bulk of their sorting. A couple of things did get scrapped – a jigsaw that turned out not to have all of its pieces, a book missing a back cover – but when he got back to the case, he frowned. There was a small lock attached to the front, one that he hadn’t noticed before.

He picked it up again, moving it slowly back and forth – there was certainly something inside, but was it really worth trying to get in?

“Have you seen this case before?” he yelled through to Bofur, who popped his head through the door, only to shrug.

“Doesn’t look familiar. What’s in it?”

Bilbo shook his head.

“It has a lock – I don’t suppose that we have a key?”

Bofur gave him a withering look.

“In this shop? Are you serious?”

Bilbo sighed, and sat back, running his hands over the leather again.

It was a _nice_ suitcase, and the thing was, Bilbo _liked_ cases. They made him think of adventures, of the old bags covered in customs stickers from his childhood, when his mother had taken him all over the world, of forgotten families and distant places. And the weight to this case was intriguing, as was the feeling of things moving around inside it, some unspoken promise of something interesting within. His curiosity was piqued now, and he frowned down at it for a long moment.

It would be a shame to junk it just because they couldn’t open it.

Bofur was still watching him, and he seemed to recognise Bilbo’s expression, because with a mock-exasperated sigh he shook his head.

“Want me to call Nori?”

Bilbo nodded, smiling a little at how predictable he could be at times.

This wasn’t the first time that Nori had been called in to the shop. Every now and again large suitcases or old boxes were donated with locks still on them, normally from when people were clearing out houses. Though it would have been easy enough to just throw them out, Bilbo always ended up protesting, and asking the locksmith down the street to come in with his fine picks and work them open again. Most of the time it yielded nothing of particular value, but now and again they came across something of worth, something that would push them above their profit margins for the month, and so Bofur continued to indulge Bilbo in his whims.

Particularly as Nori didn’t charge – he said that he just enjoyed keeping on top fine picking. Bilbo had often wondered whether the man had ever used those skills for anything else, but always managed to stop himself from asking.

And so later in the afternoon Nori came round, his velvet case of picks tucked into his pocket, by which point Bilbo was positively buzzing with anticipation about the case: whilst he tried to ignore it and carry on with his work for the day, he couldn’t quite stop himself from thinking about it, the mystery of it, and by the time Nori came through the door he was routinely going back into the office, to make sure that it was still there.

Nori sighed when he caught sight of the old lock.

“One day the pair of you will come up with something of a challenge for me,” he muttered, tossing the long braid of his auburn hair over his shoulder, pulling out the finest of his picks and setting to work. The lock gave quickly, and Bilbo took a step forward as Nori opened the case. Even Bofur leaned forward, interested to see what was inside despite himself.

But it wasn’t quite as exciting as Bilbo had anticipated.

Photographs. The whole case was full of photographs.

“Huh,” Bofur said, rocking back on his heels. “That’s an odd one. You reckon they donated it by mistake?”

Nori picked up the corner of one, frowning as he took in the young woman, captured in black and white, sitting out in a garden in a summer dress – the shot was a little blurred, obviously a home snap.

“Don’t know why anyone would donate a case of family photographs. My brother keeps all of ours, even the crap ones. Sentimental as shit about them.”

Bilbo picked up another, from off the top: it showed a man, in his forties or fifties with a baby in his lap – the child couldn’t have been more than a year old, sitting up on the man’s knee and scowling at the camera, its head a mess of fine, dark hair. Though the baby looked less than happy, the man was beaming, his hair salt-and-pepper hair pushed back across his head, his eyes intelligent, his smile wide.

He turned it over.

_‘Thror and his first grandson in the garden at 135 Erebor street, June 1981’_

The ink was faded, the writing sloped and a little messy, but there was love in there, in the fact that someone had taken the time to label this photograph, even if all they were going to do with it was put it in an old suitcase. He leafed through a few more, absentmindedly, and wondered at the fact that these had been discarded. Surely it had not been deliberate?

No, it couldn’t have been.

“God knows what we are going to do with them. We can’t sell these,” Bofur said, with a sigh. “They’re too personal – besides, there are photographs of kids in here.”

Bilbo nodded in agreement.

“Bofur,” he asked, still looking at the photograph on top of the pile, the middle aged man and his grandson. “Mind if I borrow the computer?”

He found the address quickly enough on Google maps: it was only a few stops on the tram out of his way, and so at the end of the day, once he had helped Bofur close up for the day, he put the suitcase in the bag-for-life that he had intended to use in the supermarket, and went to find Erebor Street. He’d looked at enough photographs that afternoon to know what to expect: a street of town houses, with long back-gardens, early Victorian in style and elegant with it, even if they were a little shabby around the edges, but when he reached the street he found himself staring.

These… these were not the same houses.

Perhaps this Erebor Street had been in a different city, a different country, even? But the weather had looked right for England, and the more he looked around the more he was certain that this was the right street – the same curve around the middle of it, the same old streetlights, refurbished now but with the same bodywork.

So he strode up to the door of 135, even though now it was a compact, detached modern build, all beige-brick and neat, clipped hedges. It was very different from the ramshackle old house that Bilbo had seen in the photographs that he had shifted through that afternoon, when he was on his break, curious as to how the case had ended up there.

But he knocked none-the-less, though he wasn’t particularly surprised when a middle-aged, blonde woman who looked nothing like any of the people in the photographs opened the door with a polite smile.

“Hello,” Bilbo began, wondering how best to explain the situation. “I am sorry to bother you, but this is a rather strange request – I work in the Sue Ryder charity shop, in the city centre, and today we found a case of old family photographs. A few were from the eighties, and had this address listed – I don’t suppose you know what happened to the family who lived here then, do you?”

The woman was polite, and as helpful as she could have been – she explained to Bilbo that the house had been burnt down, as had most of the original block, in a fire in the nineties. Sometime after that a property developer had bought up the land and built the new houses – but as for the people who had lived there originally, she couldn’t tell him anything.

He retreated home, feeling a little morose, and spent his evening drinking tea and leafing through the photographs, feeling a little guilty as he did so – he couldn’t help but shake the feeling that by looking at these pictures, as innocent as his intentions were, he was somehow invading some family’s collective memory, their identity.

Because there was everything in here, he realised, the further he went through. There were photographs from summer holidays and Christmases, first days at school, babies and the elderly, birthday cakes and kisses pressed to cheeks. There was a mother crying in a hospital, there a father laughing whilst he swung a children around: there were photographs of bouquets of flowers and rooms and family pets, children clinging to patient dogs and cats seeming to stare disdainfully down the lens of the camera. There were names attached to some of the photographs, and dates and places sometimes too, a whole mass of information that told him so little when it came to actually finding them – because he did want to find them, wanted to return this all to him.

_Thror, Fror and their new baby brother – St Mary’s Hospital, 1934_

_Cousin Farin and baby Fundin, Bournemouth, 1948_

_Dis’ first day of school, 1990_

_Fror and Grandma Sophie, in Anglesey, 1971_

_Groin and Himla, on their wedding day, 1958_

_Baby Dwalin and his big brother, Blackpool, 1983_

_All of us together! Erebor Street, 1969_

_Thror and baby Thrain, 1950._

_Dain and Thror, 1940_ – no further description in that one, and it didn’t need it. Just a scared looking teenage boy standing next to an older man in uniform, and with that date it only meant one thing. Try as he might he couldn’t find any other pictures of Dain from after that one.

Who were all these people? How were they connected to each other? Were they all relatives, and if they were, were they a close knit family, or did these photographs simply give that impression? Did they live near to each other, or far? Were they all still in touch? Where were the youngest generation, now – people that were around his own age, though it was difficult to think of them that way – there were no photographs in the case from after 1994, and Bilbo couldn’t help but wonder, a little despondently, if that was something to do with the fire.

Before he went to bed that night, Bilbo found himself booting up his old desktop PC, and clicking his way through to the advertisement section of The Guardian newspaper, which he had once used when trying to sell the several old items of furniture from his parent’s house. He typed up a quick hundred words, including the email address that he used for newsletters, and paid online for it to run for two weeks.

After that, he reasoned, he would put the case up in the attic and forget about it – perhaps, he thought with a little wry amusement, they might prove a similar puzzle to some distant relative many years in the future, after he had passed away and the time came to empty out his own house.

He would forget about these people that he had never met, and their stories, that he would never hear.

 

* * *

 

The two weeks passed slowly.

Bilbo checked his email every day, and had some responses. Several were from people who had lived in the area, genuine people trying to find and reconnect with their past, but it became quickly clear that they were not from the family he was looking for. One man, Bard, had seemed quite disappointed that they were not his – he had been an interesting man to talk to, though, and had offered new information to Bilbo. His family had also lived in the area that the fire had affected, but he had stayed there, his family rebuilding their own home and staying on in the area. When Bilbo had mentioned some of the names in the photographs – Thror, Thrain, Fundin – he had recognised them, had told Bilbo a little about the Durin family, who had lived two streets away from him, according to his elderly father, but he could tell Bilbo no more about what had happened to them after they had left Erebor street.

It had given him some hope, for a while, but it had proved to be another dead end – he could find no other information about them, and though for a while he had toyed with the idea of perhaps finding someone who knew more about searching for these things than he had, in the end he had put it aside. It seemed wrong to invade their privacy any more than he had already done.

There had been an email from an art student, wondering if he could use them if they remained unclaimed for a project of his, but Bilbo had turned him down – they were not his, after all, to give away. There was also a fair number of the usual spam messages and a couple that were obviously taking the piss, which he promptly ignored.

The two weeks passed: the advert was taken down, and he wondered for a couple of days whether he should have done more, whether he should have put up the advert in other newspapers, in other places, whether he should have tried other means of searching.

“Leave it,” Bofur had told him, gently, when he had confessed all this to him, one warm and rainy Friday. “Somethings just aren’t meant to be.”

Those words offered little comfort, and he returned home that evening and stared at the case for some time, until a ding from his computer alerted him to a new email.

He made a cup of tea before he checked it, but when he did, he couldn’t help but smile.

Perhaps somethings were not meant to be – but it seemed, at least, that this was not one of them.

> To: [bilbo.baggins@gmail.com](mailto:bilbo.baggins@gmail.com)  
>  From: [tdurin@hotmail.co.uk](mailto:tdurin@hotmail.co.uk)  
>  Subject: photographs  
>  I believe that the photographs you have found belong to my family. I will reimburse you for the cost of delivery, if you would send them to this address

Below, the details of a house in a street less than an hour away from where Bilbo lived, close to the shop, and it was signed T. Durin, a curt and unfriendly email all in all, but Bilbo still found himself grinning.

Despite that, Bilbo still felt a little unwilling just to send them off, despite the man’s surname matching what Bard had told him. As Bofur had said, these were private photographs, photos of _children,_ not things that he could just send off to anyone. A name did not necessarily mean that he was the right person – after all, how many Smith’s, or Jones’, were there in England?

But some hope leapt in his chest, none the less.

> To: tdurin@hotmail.co.uk  
>  From: [bilbo.baggins@gmail.com](mailto:bilbo.baggins@gmail.com)  
>  RE: photographs  
>  Dear Mr Durin,  
>  I am delighted to hear from you! I would be happy to deliver the photographs, although I fear that it would have to be in person rather than through the mail, as the case is rather delicate and there are a great deal of pictures. But if you wouldn’t mind, would you tell me some of the names, or addresses, that I might expect to see on the back? You must understand, of course, that I wouldn’t want to give them away to the wrong person.  
>  Many thanks,  
>  Bilbo

It took three days until the mysterious ‘T. Durin’ replied, and when he did it was as brief as it could have possibly been, and somehow managed to sound irritated without expressing any particular emotion at all, which Bilbo couldn’t help but find rather impressive, even if it was a little insulting.

> To: [bilbo.baggins@gmail.com](mailto:bilbo.baggins@gmail.com)  
>  From: [tdurin@hotmail.co.uk](mailto:tdurin@hotmail.co.uk)  
>  RE: photographs  
>  My father’s name was Thrain; my grandfather’s is Thror. His brothers were Fror and Gror, and his father was called Dain. Fundin, Dwalin, Balin, Dis and Frerin are all names that should be in there. We lived at 135 Erebor street. I assume that that is enough information for you.

He didn’t even bother signing his name this time, and Bilbo couldn’t help but smile as he sent back his reply – it was impossible to believe that this man was not a part of this family, knowing these details.

And the T, then – he must be Thorin. There were many pictures of him in the case, as an infant and a child, a sulky looking boy with dark hair and blue eyes, the kind of boy that scowled at the camera when he was asked to pose, but was always laughing with the other children when he didn’t know a photograph was being taken – after Bilbo read the email, and sent off a reply, offering to drop the case around the following afternoon, he went back to his coffee table, to the case. On top of it were a few of the photographs that he kept coming back to, the ones that made him smile, made him ache, in a strange and happy way, for the family that he had lost along the way, for the childhood of blissful summers and slow evenings, for youth and ignorance and a contentment that came without restraint.

There it was – one in particular, young children in a field of grass, the snaking silver of water reflecting the sunlight just beyond them, labelled ‘ _The children by the canal: 1989’_. It didn’t have names, but he was familiar enough with the faces by now not to need them.

Most of the children were sat in the grass, but one was standing – Thorin. He was staring up at the sky, and the corner of his mouth was twitching, as if he was trying not to laugh. He looked like a sweet child, a gentle child, but one that did not mind standing back from the crowd.

He looked like a child that would grow up to be a good man.

 

* * *

 

Bilbo went around to the house the next day, after work. He hadn’t received a reply from Thorin by the time he had left the house that morning, but it didn’t seem like too much of an issue – he was only dropping off the suitcase after all, which was swinging in its bag around by his knees, hitting him every now and again, and Thorin had already told him his address in the very first email.

He had taken the tram a few stops, uncomfortably warm in the early summer, which was already shaping up to be a particularly hot one. From there, it had only been ten minutes, a pleasant enough walk in the late afternoon, but enough time to let a strange sort of anticipation build up in his chest.

What would Thorin be like?

Would he still scowl, the way that he had done as a child, in all of those photographs?

Google maps had once again been his friend, leading him to Luin avenue quickly: it turned out to be a narrow street, flanked with tall and slender town houses fronted with white stone, steep steps leading up from the street to narrow doorways, tangles of ivy and flowers falling from window boxes and walls down to the grates on the pavement. It was quiet, and peaceful, the kind of house whose value would have rocketed unexpectedly in the last decade or so, and Bilbo found himself sighing, almost a little envious, wondering if perhaps these houses had gardens – if they did, they would have been utterly perfect.

Thorin Durin’s was the one on the end, the corner allowing the house a small side passage, and he peeked down it, as he stood on the bottom of the steps – there was a gate at the end, and tall white walls, that looked exactly as if they contained a garden.

He hesitated for a moment at the bottom of the steps as he tried to work out what the best way to introduce himself would be, and as he paused, uncertainty flooded him. Perhaps this was a little…

Invasive?

After all, he was a stranger to this family, and Thorin hadn’t explicitly told him to come over when he gave him his address. He had been so caught up with the excitement of finding the owners of the photographs, so determined to return these memories to them, memories of a family the likes of which he did not have, that perhaps he had moved too quickly – but what if Thorin had replied to his email, told him to come over? Damn it, he should have checked on the computer at work before he left. Wouldn’t it be utterly rude of him to leave now, if Thorin was in there waiting for him, without an explanation?

But before Bilbo could make up his mind whether to stay or to go, someone must have spotted him: the front door swung open, and before he knew what was happening he was being greeted enthusiastically by an older man, in his eighties or even his early nineties, leaning heavily on the door for support.

“Hello there!” called the old man, beaming wildly, “Who are you? Have we met?”

“Ah!” Bilbo jumped to attention. “No sir, I’m here to see – well, a Mr T Durin?”

The old man grasped tight hold of the rail, unsteady on the steep steps, and began slowly to walk down the steep steps as he spoke, reaching his arm out to shake Bilbo’s hand. “That would be me! Thror Durin, at your service!”

Bilbo started forward, taking the man’s outstretched hand, his skin soft and wrinkled, whilst simultaneously trying to steady him. “Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you sir,” he said, helping the man back up to the door. “I think, then, that I am here to meet your grandson?”

“Thorin?” Thror replied, his face scrunching into something of a frown. “Well, he never tells me anything. Do, do come in – would you like some tea?”

“I- well, yes please, but I-”

He waved Bilbo off, leaving him into a spacious and cool living room, ushering him and his bag into a chair before Bilbo could protest. The old man smiled at him as he hovered on the rug for a moment, as if he was trying to remember what he was doing, before settling carefully into the opposite chair.

“How do you know my grandson?” he asked, pushing his wire-framed glasses up his strong nose, still smiling through his grey beard.

“I’ve been emailing him,” Bilbo began, hesitantly. “He-”

Thror positively beamed at him.

“Oh, so he finally signed up to one of those online dating sites, did he? I kept telling him that he needed to do something, rather than spending all his time cooped up here with me.”

Bilbo blinked.

“Oh! Umm, no, actually-”

But before he could explain further, another voice called through from the hallway: Bilbo, too thrown by what was going on, froze for a moment when he heard it.

“Grandfather, who are you speaking to- who the hell are you?”

Bilbo turned, in his chair, to face the newcomer – in the doorway stood a tall and imposing man, dark hair pushed back from his face and tied in a messy knot at the nape of his neck, his features similar to Thror’s. His eyes, dark and blue behind his thick-framed and rather fashionable glasses, were glaring, but were still familiar – the eyes of a scowling boy that Bilbo only knew from photographs.

He smiled. The man in the doorway did not.

“Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins. We spoke over email?”

The man – who could only have been Thorin – folded his arms, still frowning.

“About the photographs.”

Bilbo nodded, momentarily distracted by the strength in those folded arms, the line of muscle, the dark hair that covered them – but Thror had perked up, staring between them with ill-disguised interest.

“What photographs are these?”

Bilbo turned back to him, reaching carefully into the bag and drawing out the old case, his hands gentle on the leather. He lay it on the low table between them, and smiled as the old man leant forward, his silver hair lit by the warm light pouring in through the tall windows.

“Well, I found a case of old pictures you see, and I’ve been trying to track down who they belonged to, because they seem too personal to just be lost-”

But Thror barely seemed to be listening to him – his eyes were fixed on the case, only drawing away long enough to look up at Bilbo, now lit with some fervent curiosity, some strange sadness that took Bilbo by surprise.

“May I see?”

He found himself nodding, the smile fading from his mouth in the face of the confusing rush of emotions he could see in Thror’s gaze – he reached over, and opened the case, revealing the photographs inside.

Thror leant forward, his hand trembling as he pulled first one, and then another picture from inside. He held them in his hands, hands that had once been broad and strong, Bilbo thought, hands that were still shaking even as one of them pressed against Thror’s mouth, his shoulders shuddering a little as he let out a long breath, tears trembling in his eyes.

“Oh,” he said, after a long moment, as he pulled another photograph out, his hand withdrawing from his mouth to stroke across the surface, his voice overwhelmed with emotion, as if he were on the verge of weeping. “That’s a picture that I never thought I’d see again.”

Bilbo swallowed – there was love in the old man’s eyes, love and sadness and the ache of a life that had been long lived and full of loss. Thror turned it around, and showed it to him – a wedding photograph, a young Thror standing next to a beautiful woman in a white dress, cut short to below the knee, a post-war dress, made when people had little and fabric was still short. But despite that, they were both smiling, baby’s breath twined through her dark hair, pinned to the lapel of his jacket.

“I had thought this was lost,” Thror said, quietly. “That was one of the happiest days of my life, and I had thought that I would never get to see it again. She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

Bilbo nodded, slowly.

Thror didn’t cry, not quite, but it seemed as though he was close to it, though he did not stop smiling. He drew more and more pictures out of the case, and some he simply smiled at – others, though, he showed to Bilbo, and told him the stories behind it, filling in the gaps in Bilbo’s knowledge. Here a cousin, here a child, here a friend or a lover or a spouse – here was a man who died from sickness, here a woman who was lost to war, here a holiday where the sting of grief did not reach them. Story after story he told Bilbo, Thorin still leaning in the doorway, an outpouring of memory and emotion that left Bilbo feeling overwhelmed, almost lost, in the face of such feeling.

On the mantelpiece a clock struck seven, and it seemed to startle Thror from himself, from the nostalgia of his thoughts, and he sat back in his chair, staring at the case, falling silent. Bilbo watched the line of his throat as he swallowed, watched the way that he wiped unshed tears from his eyes.

He glanced back at Thorin: to his surprise, he saw the man wiping his own eyes, too, and felt with some certainty that there was something here that he was missing, something that he did not understand.

Thror shuffled the pictures gently, and placed them back in the case, closing his eyes for a moment as he rested back in his chair. But when he glanced back at Bilbo he frowned, his gaze uncertain, somehow wary.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice different now, a little frail. “Are you a friend of Thorin’s?”

Bilbo’s mouth opened, unsure of what to say, but Thorin got there first.

“He brought the photographs around Grandfather,” he told the old man, his voice surprisingly gentle as he came over, resting a comforting hand on Thror’s shoulder. “You remember. His name is Bilbo, he is the one who found them.”

“Oh…” Thror replied, looking up at his grandson as if searching for some comfort, his hand still trembling as he reached up, pressing his own hand on Thorin’s before nodding, though his eyes seemed, at least to Bilbo, to remain confused. “Oh, of course.”

He smiled, a little weakly.

“Thorin, I’m,” he said, his voice wavering. “I’m feeling a little tired. I think I might go and lie down for a little while, if that is alright.”

Thorin nodded, helping him to his feet, leading him to the hallway, to a flight of stairs. Thror took a hesitant step, Thorin still behind him, helping him, when he turned back, looking at Bilbo through the living room door, his cheerful smile back on his face.

“It’s been very nice to meet you, Bilbo,” he said, his voice bright. “You must come again.”

Eyes wide, Bilbo struggled to think of how best to reply. “Oh, I-”

Thror shook his head.

“No, I insist! Next week, at the same time? You must let us repay you for finding our photographs.”

“I… well,” Bilbo said, still uncertain. But then Thror tilted his head, his eyebrows contracting a little as if he was trying not to frown, and Bilbo caved. “Of course,” he replied with a smile. “I would love to.”

“Good.” Thror said, quite certainly, as Thorin made an impatient sound at his side. “I shall see you then.”

The two made their slow way upstairs, out of sight of Bilbo now, who sat a little uncomfortably, not knowing quite what to do – glancing at the clock again, he realised with some surprise that he had been sat there listening to Thror’s stories for well over an hour, nearly two, and felt suddenly guilty for having imposed on them for so long, for having so clearly tired the old man out. He shifted, wondering whether he should let himself out, or whether that would be impolite – he felt now that he should apologise to Thorin, and that thought kept him in his chair, kept him from leaving.

Thorin reappeared soon, moving quietly through the house, and Bilbo spoke before he had a chance to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo said, his hands running over the soft and worn surface of the armchair. “I shouldn’t have just come over like that, I just thought-”

But Thorin raised a hand, silencing him.

“I had wanted to see them myself, in case they were not ours,” he told Bilbo, quietly. “I didn’t want to tell him and get his hopes up – but it turns out that they are, so there is nothing lost.”

Bilbo nodded, standing.

“I’m glad, that they were yours. It seemed like he enjoyed seeing them?”

Thorin nodded.

“I haven’t seen him talk that much in quite some time,” he replied, running a hand through his hair, his eyes on the wall but his gaze elsewhere, far away, as if remembering some distant, sweeter time. “He struggles to get around now, doesn’t even have the energy to garden. Doesn’t talk much, either – well. He… forgets things, now.”

Bilbo bit his lip.

“Is it just you, who cares for him?”

Thorin made a low noise of agreement, turning towards the hallway, and the front door. Bilbo padded quickly over to him, not missing his cue.

“You don’t need to bother coming back,” Thorin told him, as he held the door open for Bilbo, but his voice wasn’t harsh, just oddly distant. “We’ve already taken up more than enough of your time. Besides,” he continued, something bitter entering his voice as Bilbo stepped outside. “He won’t remember that he invited you.”

Bilbo shook his head, suddenly anxious that this would not be the first and only time that he met Thror, that he would be able to come back, to hear more of these stories, to see the man light up from the inside again as he rediscovered his youth, his family, all of those that he had loved.

“No, I… if it is alright with you, I would like to come back. I enjoyed myself. It’s… it’s nice, listening to him talk.”

Thorin nodded, once, and closed the door.

 

* * *

 

 **** _To: Bofur_  
From: Bilbo                         
Sent: 19:16  
I found the family, they have their pictures back.

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Bofur         
Sent: 19:21  
Congrats! Were they happy?

 **** _To: Bofur_  
From: Bilbo                                         
Sent: 19:22  
Yeah, I think so. There was an older man – in his eighties or even nineties, he was telling me stories about who all the people were.

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Bofur                         
Sent: 19:24  
Oh? How was that?

 **** _To: Bofur_  
From: Bilbo                         
Sent: 19:28  
Sad, but nice at the same time. He asked me to come back, next week.

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Bilbo                                         
Sent: 19:29  
Are you going to?

 **** _To: Bofur_  
From: Bilbo                         
Sent: 19:31  
I think so, yes.

 

* * *

 

The next week saw him back at the house, although this week he spent a little longer hesitating – in fact, all week he had been wondering whether or not he should return, or just leave the man and his grandson in peace, or whether he should email Thorin again, and apologise, find out whether or not he was really welcome to return. He had stopped himself from doing that, though – their conversation had simply been about the case, and it felt somehow awkward to continue it, when Thorin was essentially a stranger to him.

It had, in fact, been Bofur who had convinced him to come, in the end, after several days of worrying had finally driven his friend to speak on the matter.

“The worst that will happen is that you’ll go, and they won’t have time to see you, right? Then you can just apologise and go home again. But if they are expecting you, and you don’t go, you’ll just seem rude, won’t you?”

And so here he was, and when he finally worked up the courage to knock on the door, it was Thorin who opened it.

He looked Bilbo up and down, just once, and then nodded, his mouth twisting into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“I didn’t think you’d actually come back,” Thorin told him, quietly. “But he did remember you – he’s been telling everyone, all week, about how you brought his photographs back. He’ll be glad to see you.”

That, at least, made Bilbo glad that he had found the nerve to return.

Thorin led him through the living room this time, towards the back – it was a long and narrow house, Bilbo realised now – just the hallway and the living room at the front, with a wide kitchen behind it, taking up the length of the house. It looked as through a smaller room had been knocked through to make it that size – perhaps a dining or utility room – but now it boasted a scrubbed down table, and chairs, as well as an open archway through to a tiny conservatory.

It was to there that Thorin took him, barely giving Bilbo time to take in the white walls, the varnished floorboards, the tall windows of the house, ushering him almost immediately into the glass room, full of potted plants, barely leaving room for the old deck chairs tucked in it. It was a hexagon in shape, the panes of glass reaching up to a domed roof, and it looked old, though in good condition, the door open to let in the air, the day having been almost unpleasantly hot and humid once again.

Thror beamed up at him from one of the chairs, and Bilbo spotted the case, leaning against the wall, as if Thror had brought it in here.

“It’s Bilbo,” Thorin prompted, and Thror’s smile stretched even wider.

“Of course, of course!” he said, gesturing over at another chair. “Sit down lad, sit down. Thorin, tea?”

Thorin rolled his eyes but left them to it, and after a moment Bilbo could hear the sound of running water, of a kettle being switched on.

“This is my favourite part of the house,” Thror said, gesturing around the room. “I can’t get around the garden any more to look after my plants, but I can in here.”

Bilbo glanced out at the garden – as he had thought, it was a walled space, not particularly large but pleasant, its walls whitewashed, lawn a little overgrown, surrounded by borders that were currently dense with bindweed, their white blooms opening up in the sun. Thror smiled, a little ruefully.

“Thorin tries to look after it, he’s a good lad, but he doesn’t have a way with plants.”

“I can hear you,” Thorin called from the kitchen, sounding more fond than annoyed, making Bilbo shift a little in his seat, feeling out of place.

“It’s a lovely garden for the city,” he replied, lamely, and Thror flushed happily – obviously his garden was a point of pride.

“I chose this house for the garden, you know,” he said. “There were nicer houses, in nicer areas, but I said to my wife, we must have this one! There is nowhere else that we will have a lawn! And bless her heart, she agreed, and she loved it as much as I did.”

Bilbo smiled then. “My parents loved their garden too,” he answered. “Spent all the time that they could in it. I think they would hate that all I have is a balcony, even if it is covered in hanging baskets and ferns.”

Thror grinned.

“My Darla – she used to grow herbs all along the side of the house, every herb she could think of, even though neither of us were any good at cooking. But all the neighbours would come by all the time and taking a cutting, here or there, to use – it meant that we knew everyone on the street!”

But then his gaze grew despondent.

“Not like now, of course,” he told Bilbo. “Now I don’t know any of them, they are all young business types who don’t have time for an old fool like me.”

Bilbo shook his head.

“Their loss,” he told him, just as Thorin returned, with a tray and a scowl. He didn’t say much as he lay out the cups, and the small plate of cakes, making sure that they were in easy reach of Thror, before disappearing again, although Bilbo suspected that he wouldn’t have gone far, still within earshot.

“Do you have any family, lad?” Thror asked, quietly, his eyes on where his grandson had been, and Bilbo shook his head.

“Some distant relatives, who live outside of the city – I don’t see them often. My parents passed away quite a few years ago, now.”

Thror nodded, slowly, some sympathy passing over his expression, but he did not express it, did not say any of the words that Bilbo had heard so many times before, and for that he was grateful. Thror passed him the cakes, small and delicate things that must have been bought from a bakery, and Bilbo wondered, as he took one, whether they had bought these in, specially, in case he had come back. Thorin didn’t exactly seem the type for dainty baking, and Thror waved him away when he tried to pass them back to him.

“Tell me about your neighbours,” Bilbo said, around a mouthful. “The ones you used to know, I mean. Do you have any photographs of them?”

And with that, Thror seemed to light up.

They spent the next hour this way, Thror shuffling through the pictures trying to find ones of his old friends, his cousin too, who had lived on the street. He told Bilbo their stories, the good and the gossipy, of old dinner parties that he had his wife had hosted, of the children that had played on the street.

“Thorin was about fourteen, when we moved here,” Thror said, stroking a photograph gently. “But his brother and sister – well, they would have been about eight and eleven, and they used to love coming over, to play with the other children in the neighbourhood. They only lived two streets away, you see, but it was a busier road, and so my son preferred it when they came here.”

“Was that… after the fire?” Bilbo hesitated, and Thror nodded, a little sadly.

“Aye, that it was – it’s lucky enough that we were outgrowing that house,” he answered. “Children and grandchildren all in one big, ramshackle old place, and developers constantly at our door, trying to get us to sell up. But we loved it, even if half our possessions were in my father’s old storage unit.”

Bilbo nodded

“Is that how these photographs survived?”

Thror smiled. “I would say so. We had a big shift through everything, once we had settled in here, to find things that we needed – we didn’t have a lot of money, so the old furniture was suddenly very useful again. But some things got thrown away, and my Darla took a lot to the charity shops – how you came across it, I have no idea.”

“I found it in the charity shop where I work,” Bilbo told him. “All tucked away in the back room, which was so full of stuff that it had probably been sitting there undisturbed since your wife brought it in. But I’m glad of that – glad that I could bring them back to you.”

Thror’s smile was soft as he looked at the photographs spread out in his lap, worn with age, the colour ones faded, but the memories intact.

“As am I, lad,” he told Bilbo. “As am I.”

 

* * *

 

 

And after that, Bilbo settled into a strange sort of routine. Once a week he would leave work, and instead of getting the tram northwards, he would go south instead, to a different part of the city, and pad quietly along to the narrow street when Thror and Thorin lived. He’s stay for a couple of hours, talking to the old man, listening to his stories – they would drink tea together, and talk about plants, too, and after a while they began to sort through the photographs, trying to put them in some sort of chronological order as best they could, and that prompted a whole new sequence of stories.

Bilbo found photo annuals that people had donated in the charity shop, unused ones, and brought them round, for Thror to fill, on the days that he had the energy. Thror didn’t seem to mind that they were all slightly different sizes, and in different styles and patterns: he stood them side by side, and smiled contentedly at each completed one.

Thror copied out the notes on the back of the pictures into the spaces in the annuals in his own, shaking cursive, and paused at the each completed page, looking down at them with some pride, an unorthodox achievement.

Bilbo heard the stories too, of what had happened to those people since the run of photographs had ended, and sometimes Thror showed Bilbo more recent ones – of Dis, now tall and beautiful, and her wife Vivi, whose pretty round face always seemed to be smiling, and their two sons, both still under ten years old, who were apparently always getting into trouble. There was Frerin, too, who looked like Thorin but was apparently taller (although Thorin was still a good five inches taller than Bilbo, who stood at a diminutive five foot six). There was Dwalin, too, who remained good friends with them, and Balin, who was now Barla, according to Thror. It was strange, looking at them as children, to imagine them now as adults – what must they be like?

Sometimes Thror would play the old piano tucked into the alcove in the living room, the old songs that his wife had made him learn for her, and sometimes Bilbo read to him, as the old man dozed peacefully in his favourite chair.

Occasionally he would ask Bilbo about his life, about his family, but there was so little to tell – it left Bilbo a little morose, at times, to think of how few stories he really had to tell. But Thror would always prompt him, and eventually be began to open up, revisiting the childhood that he had thought he had left behind him, those sweet and happy times that made him ache for his mother and father.

“It is important to remember the people we have lost,” Thror told him once, smiling a little. “Even if it does hurt. That way, they are not really gone, you see?”

Bilbo had nodded, feeling strangely comforted.

One day he arrived to find Thror turning a tiny bunch of dried wildflowers around in his fingers, as gently as possible, the small things so fragile that they might have disintegrated under a rougher touch. He had found them, apparently, tucked in an envelope in the case, missed by them both originally as it had been hidden in a pocket, one that neither of them had thought to look at.

“Where are those from?” he had asked, expecting another long story, perhaps of someone’s sweetheart, but Thror had shook his head, an odd expression on his face.

“I don’t remember,” he said, his voice a little sad. “And, I know I have started to forget things-” he had glanced up, at Bilbo’s expression, and offered a wry smile. “Don’t think that I haven’t noticed that, lad. I’m old, not stupid.”

He had turned back to the flowers, his shoulders slumping.

“But this… this doesn’t feel like something I have forgotten. This feels like something that I have never known. Was this my wife’s? Was it my daughter’s? Which one of them hid this here, in our case of memories? Who thought this was important enough to save, and why?”

He had shrugged, and then laid the flowers gently down on the table.

“There are some things, I suppose, that I will never know.”

He had remained quiet for much of that evening, and when he had said goodbye to Bilbo he had gripped his hand much tighter than usual, staring at him with some intensity, as if trying to commit his face to memory.

And memory – well. Thror had good days, and bad days – sometimes Thror would remember Bilbo’s name when he arrived: other times Thorin would have to carefully remind him, though he never seemed to forget about the photographs, never needed prompting to tell his stories, to bring out those memories from his youth. Other times, he fell asleep mid-way through their conversations, or seemed so tired that he said little, just listened to Bilbo read, or talk about his day. He often forgot which stories he had told Bilbo before, repeating them time and time again, or which questions he had previously asked, and sometimes he would ask them of Bilbo again and again, over the same evening, each time forgetting the answer.

It could be frustrating, at times, but Bilbo tried his hardest not to react to it, even though he could appreciate that it was a perfectly natural response. Instead he would just smile, and answer again, or nod through a story that he had heard several times before, and focus instead on the way that Thror smiled as he told it, the warmth in his eyes, the good that it was obviously doing him to have the chance to talk about these things.

But Bilbo was quite certain that he saw very little of the worst of things, of those days where Thror couldn’t remember anything other than long-dead friends, if the bags that Bilbo sometimes saw under Thorin’s eyes were any indication.

And Thorin? Well Thorin was a stranger to Bilbo in many ways still. Most of the time he simply let Bilbo in, made the tea or poured iced drinks, and then disappeared again, although more and more frequently he would stay in the room as well, listening to his grandfather’s stories – and occasionally they had even started to join in, adding things to the stories of events that he remembered, though his voice was always quiet, his tone always hesitant. Despite this, Bilbo and Thorin had actually said very little to each other, all in all.

 

* * *

 

 

That was to change, though, on one particularly hot day in that summer. Bilbo had taken a little longer to walk there than he usually would have due to that heat, his legs dragging against the heavy humidity, looking forward to spending a couple of hours sitting with Thror, without having to do anything other than talk. But when Thorin opened the door, already shaking his head, Bilbo’s heart sank.

“Sorry,” Thorin said, hovering in the doorway. “He’s asleep. He’s not been able to get that much the last few days, with the weather being as it is.”

Bilbo found himself nodding, despite his disappointment.

“I’d have texted you,” Thorin continued, “but…”

They’d never exchanged numbers. Bilbo tried to smile, as if to reassure Thorin that it was alright – after all, no one was particularly at fault, and he couldn’t blame Thror for wanting to sleep through this damned heat. He just regretted the fact that he was going to have to walk back to the tram station without a rest.

“You can still come in, if you like,” Thorin told him, quite suddenly. “It’s warm, and there’s beer in the fridge.”

Bilbo nodded, quickly, trying not to let his relief show on his face.

They ended up in the garden, dragging out the deckchairs from the humid conservatory, all the windows at the back of the house open in the attempt to let in any breeze that might appear. Even though the sun was low in the sky Bilbo could still feel his shirt sticking to his back, the sweat beading on his forehead, and swallowed the beer gratefully, the cool and refreshing taste cutting through the dryness of his mouth.

There was a sweetness to the air, even though there were few flowers left in the garden other than those that belonged to the weeds. The low drone of the city seemed quieter than usual, hushed, and for a moment, if he closed his eyes, Bilbo could almost believe that he was somewhere else, somewhere in the countryside, perhaps where he had grown up, surrounded by rolling fields and meadows full of flowers.

“Thanks for the drink,” he said, and Thorin made a noise, an acknowledgment.

But he said no more, and now that he had broken it once the silence between them felt awkward, forced, and despite how much better Bilbo felt for leaning back and not moving, he knew that he needed to at least attempt to initiate conversation. After a while he cleared his throat.

“What do you do?” he asked, almost immediately cringing for how stilted it sounded.

“I’m surprised that my grandfather hasn’t already told you,” Thorin answered, after a long pause. “I’m a graphic designer.”

Bilbo blinked, in surprise – he’d never put all that much thought into what Thorin did for a living, but he wouldn’t have guessed that. “You are?”

Thorin shrugged.

“That’s what I do to pay the bills, at any rate.”

Bilbo nodded, slowly. “I guess it means that you can work from home?”

Thorin inclined his head, in agreement, but didn’t seem to have anything more to say, and in this lethargic heat Bilbo couldn’t bring forth the desire to break it again. Somewhere in the distance a bird let out a sweet call, a summer sound, carrying on the still air: Bilbo took another mouthful of beer, and let the silence fall back between them.

Bilbo’s tiredness settled over him like a blanket, and he stretched out his legs, regretting the fact that he hadn’t worn shorts that morning. He glanced over: Thorin was methodically peeling the label off his beer, the bottle hanging from one hand between his legs in their cut-off jeans, the paper coming off easily now it was damp from condensation. His eyes were focused on the task, the smallest crease of a frown between his eyebrows, and Bilbo felt an unexpected surge of fondness wash through him for the quiet, stoic man.

“How long have you been caring for him?” Bilbo asked, after a while, quietly, and Thorin shrugged.

“Four years, now,” he replied. “He had a fall, and was struggling with the stairs.”

“I imagine that he is very grateful,” Bilbo began, but whatever else he was going to say fell from his mind when Thorin made a low, unhappy sound.

“Everyone always tells me,” he began, staring down at the ground. “They tell me what a good thing that I’m doing. But it isn’t like that. It doesn’t feel like a ‘good’ thing. I’m not doing it to be ‘good’. Everyone always thinks I must either be a saint or secretly resent him – but I don’t resent him, I resent the illness that’s making him forget thing, never him. And I’m not a saint. It wasn’t a choice, moving in with him – it was the only option that I had. I love him, and he’s my grandfather. I would do anything for him. It’s not…”

He trailed off, frowning, as if he didn’t know how to explain himself. It was the most that Bilbo had ever heard Thorin say, and he reached out, resting a hand against his forearm, offering what little support that he could.

“You mean,” Bilbo said, questioningly, “that it doesn’t feel like you are doing a good thing, just the right thing?”

Thorin nodded, the corner of his mouth twisting.

“It makes me angry when people try and act like I’m making a sacrifice. This isn’t a sacrifice, not for me.”

Bilbo smiled, more to himself than to Thorin – it was obvious, at least to him, that what Thorin was doing was simultaneously right and good, but he also knew that there were some people in this world were not programmed to hear things like that, would never be able to accept it.

He realised, perhaps a little late, that his hand was still resting on Thorin’s, but he had not moved to push it away, and so Bilbo didn’t either. There had been something terribly lonely about Thorin’s tone, the way that his words had come rushing out all at once, as if he had not had someone to talk to in a very long time, and he did not mind this moment of comfort, out here in the garden. In fact, in many ways, he was glad that he had learnt this little bit more about Thorin, whose life Bilbo brushed against on a weekly basis.

They sat like that awhile, the quiet more peaceful between them now. Eventually Bilbo did move his hand, when Thorin went to get them both another beer, and he did not put it back afterwards, not wanting to push himself into Thorin’s personal space if the other man did not want him to – he just accepted the bottle, and sat back, listening to the quiet music that Thorin had put on in the kitchen whilst he had been inside. They were gentle melodies, songs that seemed to fit the summer evening, the pale sky, the birds fluttering to-and-fro in the overrun garden.

“I regret, sometimes,” Thorin said, almost under his breath, “that I have never worked out how to tend to this garden. It was beautiful, when my grandparents were well enough to look after it.”

Bilbo smiled, a little.

“I could teach you, if you like,” he offered, though he wasn’t certain if Thorin’s nod was one of agreement or not – he didn’t choose to push him, not tonight, but for a moment Bilbo did study his profile, the strong line of it, the curve of his jaw and the shadow of his stubble, the beauty of his face and the strength of his shoulders, the line of muscle and collarbone visible through his t-shirt, a soft grey that clung to him in the heat.

“I have never said thank you,” Thorin told him some time later, when the sun was much lower and the evening seemed to have cooled, just a touch. Their second bottles had been drunk, and Bilbo had cooled down enough to contemplate walking back to the tram station, but it seemed that Thorin had been thinking of something else – he turned to Bilbo, running a hand through the mess of his hair, which had been pulled up into a rough bun that day, frowning, just a little. “For finding the photographs, for tracking us down, and for coming back – every time. I didn’t believe that you would, and I’m sorry for that – for not having faith in you.”

And there it was – that loneliness again, that ache in his voice, and Bilbo’s breath caught for a moment, empathy welling up, because that was an ache that he knew well enough, had had enough experience with himself over the years.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he replied. “But I am here for you both, if you’d like me to be.”

Thorin nodded, slowly, and this time it was he that reached for Bilbo, his fingers grazing over Bilbo’s knuckles for a moment, hesitant, until Bilbo slid his fingers between Thorin’s, who held on to Bilbo’s hand tightly, as if it were some kind of lifeline.

They remained that way until the darkness of night had stolen upon them, until they could no longer make any excuses to remain in the garden, and Bilbo took his leave.

He ignored the tram, walking the long route home, searching the night sky for any stars that might have forced their way through the light pollution of the city, a smile hovering around his mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you still going around to see the family with the photographs?” Bofur asked, in some surprise a few days later, when Bilbo happened to mention it in passing. “After all this time?”

Bilbo nodded, and busied himself with the bag of donated clothes that he was sorting out.

“And why shouldn’t I be?” he asked.

Bofur shrugged, leaning over to take a pile of approved clothes from Bilbo, to hang ready for pricing: this was always the calmest point in the day, when they left a volunteer on the till and took the time to fill up the shelves again with recent donations.

“I suppose there isn’t any reason for you to, if you get on well with them,” he said, with something of a smile.

“I like listening to Thror’s stories,” Bilbo replied, quietly. “I don’t know – I don’t have any family of my own, you know, and it’s nice to listen to him. And I think it makes him feel better too, to talk about all these people, all these places from his past – and I think in a way it reassures him, that he remembers his older memories even if his more recent ones keep slipping away from him.”

Bofur nodded.

“And the grandson?”

“Thorin?” Bilbo wondered if he cheeks were going pink, or if he was just feeling flushed from the heat. “He’s quiet, you know, and quite reserved, perhaps even a little unfriendly – but kind, I think, underneath it.”

Bofur was staring at him.

“What?” Bilbo snapped, turning back to a dress that he was examining for holes.

“What does he look like?”

Bilbo waved his hands around a little.

“Oh, you know. Tall, and quite good looking I suppose. Dark hair, long enough that he keeps it tied up most of the time, with glasses. Stubble enough to be classed as a beard. Broad, across the shoulders, and- what?!”

Bofur was grinning.

“You _like_ him, don’t you?”

Bilbo huffed.

“Be quiet, you. Even if I did, that is certainly not my motivation for going round there – most of the time I don’t say anything other than hello or goodbye to him.”

Bofur was still grinning, and in the end, if Bilbo happened to throw the dress at his face, he didn’t think anyone would blame him.

 

* * *

 

 

Thankfully, the temperature dropped a little, so that the next time Bilbo went around to see Thror he was awake, and most upset that he had missed Bilbo the previous week.

“It was very rude of me,” he said, frowning at the mirror above the mantelpiece. “It must inconvenience you enough, coming to see an old man like me, and then I go ahead and sleep right through it.”

Bilbo smiled up at him from his seat next to the coffee table.

“Not at all,” he answered. “I wouldn’t come if I didn’t enjoy your company, and I do – some days I feel like this is the only evening of sensible conversation I get in a week, when I think about some of my more ridiculous friends.”

Thror snorted at that – he’d heard more than one story about Bofur and Nori’s exploits in the last few months, after all.

“Besides,” Bilbo continued, when the frown did not quite ease from Thror’s face, “Thorin took quite good care of me. We had a couple of drinks in the garden.”

Thror nodded.

“Did you now? I suppose Thorin must have told me… well, that does sound pleasant enough, I suppose.” Thror lapsed once more into silence, in something of an introspective mood today, and Bilbo wandered instead over to the bookcase, pulling out the old copy of _North and South_ that he had been reading aloud to Thror recently. He opened the page at the bookmark, the sound of the pages causing Thror to turn.

“Would you like me to read some more to you? We reached a very exciting part, last time.”

Thror stared at him, for a long and slow moment. Bilbo had expected him to smile, perhaps, or to make a wry comment – but instead his face just crumpled, and he slumped down into a chair, his movements slow, his breathing laboured, as if he was fighting back tears.

“I can’t remember where we are,” he whispered, into his hands. “I’ve read that book fifty times, but I can’t remember where we got up to, or what had happened, or even what you think of it, even though I am certain that you’ve told me.”

Bilbo was half-way across the room, but before he reached him, Thorin appeared, only further solidifying Bilbo’s belief that he always remained close by, striding across to the chair where his grandfather sat and placing a comforting hand between his shoulder blades. “It’s alright,” Thorin said, his voice low, something soft about it that almost made Bilbo feel comforted too, even though it was not directed towards him.

Thror’s shoulders slumped, his eyes closing and his mouth twisting downwards.

“Do you want to go through one of your photograph albums?” Thorin asked, and without his expression changing Thror nodded. Thorin glanced up at Bilbo, and he started, padding quickly back to the bookshelf and swapping the Gaskell novel with the first album that he could reach.

Thror seemed to calm as his shaking hands reached for it, as they turned the cover.

“Ah,” he said, quietly, more to himself than to Thorin or Bilbo, “This is the album from sixty to sixty-five. In nineteen-sixty Thrain was ten, and I was thirty five. Darla was thirty-two, and we went to Blackpool in the summer. We nearly didn’t, we had to have some of the plumbing in the house replaced, but we found the money for it somewhere. I found my first grey hair in the summer, too, and was certain that it was all Thrain’s fault – he kept insisting on swimming deeper and deeper into the sea, no matter how worried Darla and I were.”

He took a breath then, seeming to calm.

“See?” he muttered to himself. “I can still remember that, can’t I?”

Bilbo caught Thorin’s eye, across Thror’s head, and wondered how frequently moments of panic like these happened, moments when all that would ease Thror’s fears were these photographs, these old memories. He was not to know, unless Thorin told him, but he suspected that even if he asked, Thorin wouldn’t say.

He did find himself pausing for a moment, though, when Thorin showed him out, a little while later, looking up into those striking eyes and trying to smile.

“Are you sure that you are quite alright?”

Thorin stared at him, for a long, slow moment, before a smile – and how rare a sight those were! – curled at the corner of his mouth, drawing his expression into something much lighter, much more at ease. He rested a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder as he nodded, the line of his thumb resting, just for a moment, against the skin of Bilbo’s throat.

“I wondered,” Thorin asked, sounding a little hesitant. “It is a lot to ask, when you already come over so frequently…”

He trailed off, and Bilbo nodded encouragingly.

“Go on?”

“If your offer to teach me how to garden was sincere, I would appreciate it.”

“Of course!”

Thorin truly did smile then, a bright and genuine smile, and the sight of it twisted something in his chest, something warm and affectionate.

“Thror visits my sister on Saturday afternoons,” Thorin said. “That might be for the best – I would like to get as much done as I can before he notices. It might be nice – if it was a surprise.”

Bilbo rested his palm against Thorin’s forearm, briefly, as he stepped through the door.

“I’ll see you Saturday, then – around one?”

 

* * *

 

 

And so began a new step to Bilbo’s weekly routines. On Saturday afternoons, instead of sitting uncomfortably at home in the summer heat, he now jumped on the tram across the city to Thror and Thorin’s again. On the first of these journeys, he carried a bag full of gardening equipment – simple things, trowels and secateurs and forks, easy enough to use and for Thorin to hide away once they were done.

These afternoons were slow, and often far warmer than was really comfortable, but he found that he didn’t really mind, despite the fact that the back of his neck began to burn very quickly.

First they pulled up the bindweed, dratted stuff that had twined its way around every plant in the garden, or so it seemed – that in itself took an entire afternoon, and Bilbo was quite certain that Thorin would not have needed his help for that. He doubted a little the necessity of his presence until the next weekend, when it became very clear that Thorin was utterly ignorant when it came to distinguishing between flower, plant and weed: under his careless hand all were pulled from the earth, and it was only because of Bilbo that they did not lose some well-established perennials, that with just a little care and attention could quite easily be brought back to good health.

Thorin? Well, Thorin seemed to open up as well as those perennials did, once Bilbo had cared for them. He smiled more now, and occasionally Bilbo would look up, catching his eye, finding that Thorin had been watching him, for how long he did not know. He laughed on occasion, in reply to Bilbo’s wry comments, and hummed along to the music that always seemed to be wafting from the open kitchen windows now.

They were enjoyable afternoons, despite the labour involved – they remained in a comfortable silence for the most part, only occasionally exchanging words, and they both seemed to prefer that. Around an hour before Thror was due to return they would stop, and have a beer sat out on the patio, although soon enough Thror noticed the change in the garden and insisted that Bilbo stay for dinner – after that, he normally ended up remaining there until quite late, wandering home in the cooler evening with a great sense of contentment, as if a blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders.

“You must have better things to do on a Saturday evening,” Thorin said to him now, something of a question in his voice, and Bilbo had shaken his head.

“There isn’t anywhere else that I’d like to be,” he replied, quite honestly, and was rewarded by the warmth of Thorin’s heavy hand on his upper arm, a gentle squeeze conveying his thanks.

The soil needed turning, too, and as Thorin began to listen and take heed of what Bilbo said, he began to set Thorin tasks to perform throughout the week, on those days when he wasn’t there, carefully checking in on the garden during his midweek visits.

“Are you happy with how it is turning out?” Bilbo asked one afternoon, when they found themselves in the garden centre, seeking out appropriate bedding plants.

“Grandfather is, and that is the main thing,” Thorin replied, turning to him with that faint curve of a smile that Bilbo had come to know so well. “It would not have happened without you.”

Bilbo forced himself to turn away, back to the flowers: there was something unspoken in the way that Thorin was looking at him, something heavy and important, something that Bilbo was quite sure was going to make him blush, if he continued to be in sight of it.

Instead he focused on the flowers.

They weren’t quite as appealing, he was coming to accept, as watching Thorin’s face, the way it shifted as he spoke, but they were a good distraction.

Thorin’s phone rang, which was at least enough to stop him from watching Bilbo – still a little flustered, he continued to investigate the quality of the plants on offer, only looking up again when Thorin’s voice cut through the pleasant murmur of his thoughts, sharp with worry or anger, Bilbo couldn’t be sure.

“What?”

He looked up at Thorin, but he seemed too distracted to notice Bilbo’s interest: the conversation was short, and already Bilbo could see the tension settle across his shoulders, his face falling into a deep frown, his free hand clenching into a fist at his side.

“I’ll go home, and search around there.”

He hung up without saying goodbye, only then glancing up at Bilbo, already turning to the exit, back to the car park.

“It’s grandfather – he was napping in the living room at Dis’, but when she went to check on him he had left, and they can’t find him. Come on.”

The drive home was tense and silent, nothing at all like the drive to the garden centre, when they had been laughing, talking quietly, a strange and peaceful intimacy between them in the heat of the car: Thorin’s hands were white with how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel now, and he stared ahead at the road with an intensity that was almost frightening. He skipped two red lights, and they reached home far quicker than normal: Thorin didn’t speak until they were pulling into their street.

“I know it is a lot to ask,” he said, his voice low and thick. “But would you mind waiting in the house whilst I go and search? In case he comes back before I do?”

Bilbo nodded, quickly.

“Of course.”

Thorin handed him the keys, not even bothering to go inside before he strode off down the street, and the first thing that Bilbo did was to check whether or not Thror had already arrived home, and though it became quickly evident that the house was empty Bilbo found himself wandering around it again and again, agitated, with nothing to release the frustration, in case Thror had somehow let himself in without Bilbo hearing. He had never been around the upstairs before, always spending his time outside or between the living room, conservatory and kitchen, never thinking to use anything other than the downstairs loo. Upstairs was a revelation to him, and he checked each room thoroughly, disregarding his concerns about invading their space in favour of making sure that Thror was not already here.

He found Thror’s room quickly, on the first floor, a large room with a neat bed, made up with old and faded covers, floral patterns that he was certain must have picked out by Darla, before she had passed away. Their wedding photograph had been framed, and sat now on the bedside table, and Bilbo stared at it for a moment, thinking for a moment about that first evening spent here, how reverently Thror had touched that photograph, his hands gentle, his eyes so full of love.

There was a bathroom on that floor too, old black-and-white tiles sitting oddly against a very new bath-and-shower, the kind with a built in seat and door, to save Thror from having to stand too long, or having to clamber out of a slippery tub. An office next, dusty as if it was rarely used, more books lining the walls, the shelves so tall that it made the room look a little dark: he ran his fingers of the spines of some of the books, feeling hopeless.

The next flight of stairs was steeper, and lead to the top floor, a smaller space that had been knocked through at some point to make one large, open-plan room. A desk sat under the wide dormer windows, graphic tablet plugged into a large-screened desktop that dominated the space – this was clearly Thorin’s domain, and he hesitated for a moment at the top of the stairs.

A large bed was tucked away in a corner, one side against the wall – a bed that was never shared.

On the wall, the only decoration in the room, was a large print, a family photograph, and Bilbo ran his eyes over those faces for a moment – Thorin’s brother, his sister and her wife with a baby in her arms and a young, blonde-haired boy sat on Thorin’s shoulders. Thror, smiling from a seat at the front, holding tightly to the hand of a woman about his own age who sat next to him; behind them too was Thrain, and Thorin’s mother, Frieda – rarely spoken about, he realised now.

He retreated quickly, now that he knew that Thror was not there.

He longed desperately to hear from Thorin, as first half an hour and then a full hour ticked by, time dragging almost painfully, but they still had not thought to exchange numbers, as if this fragile bond between them could thrive only in this quiet house, so full of memories both lost and recovered again. He could not settle, eventually distracting his hands by watering the pot plants in the conservatory, twitching at every faint noise.

It was at least three hours until Thorin returned, and when Bilbo heard the key in the door he leapt through to the hallway, skidding a little on the polished floorboards, something in his chest releasing in relief when he saw Thror, shaking and looking somehow frailer than he ever had before, his hands clenching and releasing over and over again in front of his chest.

Thorin had an arm wrapped around his shoulders, and he was pale.

He took Bilbo a moment to realise that the old man was crying.

“Are you alright?” he asked, quietly, the question directed at both of them: Thror seemed not to hear him, but Thorin nodded, saying no more, leading his grandfather immediately upstairs. Bilbo hovered, awkwardly, before dashing back to the kitchen and making a cup of tea.

He carried it upstairs with both hands, realising now that he too was shaking a little, and knocked quietly on Thror’s door before entering when Thorin called to him, glancing over his shoulder and nodding his thanks to Bilbo. Thror was lying in the bed, now in a soft sleeping shirt, buttoned to the collar, somehow emphasising the soft wrinkles of his throat, the veins under his skin too bright. He had never looked so tired to Bilbo, not even when he was falling asleep in his chair: nor even had he seemed so fragile, so less like his usual, bright self, and Bilbo felt his chest clench, a tight ache of love and fear.

“Look Grandfather,” Thorin said, quietly, kneeling on the floor next to the bed. “Bilbo’s brought you a cup of tea.”

Thror blinked, and attempted to smile up at Bilbo, though he didn’t say anything as he took the tea from him, his hands shaking until Thorin took hold of the cup with him, steadying him a little.

It seemed to help, at least a little – the startling paleness of his cheeks had at least diminished a little by the time that he had finished, though he was still blinking a little mistily around the room, his face still touched with a frown.

“I’m sorry,” Thror said, looking finally at Bilbo. “Have we met before?”

Bilbo nodded, and tried to smile.

“My name is Bilbo,” he said, and Thror nodded still looking a little uncertain.

“I am sorry to startle you so much, Thorin,” he told his grandson. “I just went around to see your father, you know, but I seemed to get myself turned around somewhere, and I went to a phone box I couldn’t remember our number. I tried calling home, but some woman picked up, and told me that she lives in Erebor street now. How is that? And everything looks so different, too. Do you know that old Mr Carnhill’s greengrocers is a coffee shop now?”

Thorin’s answering smile was weak.

“Not to worry,” he replied, taking the now empty cup from him. “I’m just glad that we found you.”

“Ah,” Thror replied, his eyes flickering shut as he leaned back against the pillows. “You are a good lad, Thorin, looking after your grandfather when you probably have much more fun things to do with your friends.”

They sat in silence for a while as Thror’s breath began to even: soon enough he was fully asleep, and Bilbo watched as Thorin took the old man’s glasses from his nose, moving carefully, his large hands gentle. He rose without saying anything, his hand rubbing against his face as he led them both downstairs, back to the living room.

“Are you alright?” Bilbo offered, wincing even as he said it. “I mean, I know that you aren’t, but-”

“My father disappeared seven years ago,” Thorin mumbled. “Right before my grandmother died. And he’d forgotten. He was trying to find him, kept asking me where he was, and Mr Carnhill died _eleven years ago,_ and he just kept crying when I found him, and I didn’t know what to tell him-”

Bilbo reached for him, his arms wrapping instinctively around Thorin’s shoulders, pushing up to his tiptoes as Thorin’s face fell against his neck, his breath hot against Bilbo’s skin as his own arms fell around Bilbo’s waist, tugging him close, his hands clenching in the fabric of Bilbo’s shirt, as if desperate to anchor them, to keep them both here.

“He was just sitting in the park a few streets away,” Thorin whispered. “He was crying and no one was helping, and he looked so _small_. He went to find my Dad and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that Dad’s gone. He’d forgotten that our old house burnt down. He asked me why I wasn’t at _school_ -”

And then Thorin’s shoulders began to shake, and there was nothing that Bilbo could do but hold him, ignoring the ache in his legs from standing this way, ignoring the way his own pulse still seemed to be thrumming in overdrive, ignoring everything but the man in his arms, the weight of him, the warmth of him, the grief for the man upstairs, for all that time was slowly stripping away from him.

When Thorin pulled away, it was quite suddenly, his hand scrubbing across his face in a single, jerking movement.

“I need to call Dis,” he mumbled, sounding infinitely tired. “I need to call Frerin, god, and Dwalin, all of them, and-”

“Just call one of them,” Bilbo told him, his hands finding the loose strands of Thorin’s hair, pushing them back from his face. “Ask them to pass the message on, they’ll understand.”

Thorin nodded, a little strained, and reached for his phone. Bilbo wandered through to the kitchen as Thorin made the call, flicking on the kettle for a lack of anything else to do, Thorin’s voice an indistinguishable murmur from the other room. It was a quick call, but by the time he came through to the kitchen he looked so much more tired than he had done before, as if all the energy had been drained out of him.

“Dis wanted to come over, but I’ve told her that he’s sleeping, and she didn’t want me to be alone but I told her that you were here, but you don’t have to stay, I’ve already taken up all of your day-”

Bilbo shook his head.

“I’d have been here anyway, and I’m not going anywhere.”

There were other things that he had been going to say, but now Thorin was looking at him, his face still and his eyes red, his shoulders slumped from the weight of the day, and Bilbo smiled, a sad and comforting smile.

“What do you need?” he asked, and Thorin’s face crumpled.

“I…” he trailed off, as if he wasn’t sure what to say. “You don’t need to-”

But then Bilbo was stepping forwards again, reaching up to cradle Thorin’s face in his hands.

“I’d do anything for you, do you know that?” he said, his voice low in the evening light pouring in through the windows, the last of the golden light that comes before the sun finally sets. “Anything at all. You don’t have to be afraid to ask.”

And with that he pressed a kiss to Thorin’s mouth, a kiss made of comfort rather than heat, of solidarity and unspoken feelings, the only way that he had left to convey what he meant. It was a gentle thing, that kiss, and it did not last long, but when it ended Thorin pressed his forehead against Bilbo’s, his eyes closed, and he sighed.

“Stay,” he said, and Bilbo nodded.

“Of course.”

They went to bed not long after: Bilbo borrowed a shirt of Thorin’s to wear over his boxers and curled against the length of Thorin’s back in the bed, ignoring the last of the light outside, his arm across Thorin’s side and wrapped around his middle, holding him as close as he could.

He didn’t say anything as Thorin’s shoulders began to shake again.

He wasn’t sure what time they fell asleep, or how long they slept for, but when he woke in the morning, the grey light of post-dawn falling softly through the window, it was with Thorin still wrapped in his arms, his face buried in a long tangle of dark hair, his chest feeling as impossibly full as it ever had.

They exchanged numbers, when he left that morning. It felt curiously overdue.

 

* * *

 

 

 **** _To: Thorin_  
From: Bilbo  
Sent: 13:22  
How is your grandfather doing? I’m sorry that I had to leave before he was awake yesterday.

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Thorin  
Sent: 13:26  
He’s doing better, but he’s tired still. How are you?

 **** _To: Thorin_  
From: Bilbo  
Sent: 13:27  
Well enough – but what about you?

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Thorin  
Sent: 13:29  
Better, for having you stay the night.

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Thorin  
Sent: 13:29  
When will you be over next? My Grandfather is asking after you.

 **** _To: Thorin_  
From: Bilbo  
Sent: 13:32  
Wednesday, as usual?

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Thorin  
Sent: 13:35  
We’re looking forward to it.

 **** _To: Thorin_  
From: Bilbo  
Sent: 13:39  
How is the garden? Are you looking after it?

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Thorin  
Sent: 13:42  
It’s looking alright, considering we never did buy the flowers for it. Grandfather wants to come with us when we pick them this time – the garden centre opens late on Wednesday, if you want?

 **** _To: Thorin_  
From: Bilbo  
Sent: 13:45  
I’d love to. I’ll see you then.

 **** _To: Bilbo_  
From: Thorin  
Sent: 13:49  
See you then.

 

* * *

 

 

Bilbo watched Thror potter through the lines of plants, a contented smile on his face as he reached out, on occasion, to stroke a petal, or a leaf. There was a certain calmness about him today, the storm of the weekend having passed. Watching him now, a genteel old man in his dark blazer and straw hat, it would be impossible to imagine everything that had happened, everything that _was_ happening.

He glanced over at Bilbo, and smiled, his handsome and wrinkled face only a little tired in the sunlight.

A hand fell on Bilbo’s shoulder, and he glanced around, smiling a little more when he realised that it was Thorin, standing close to his back: he did not move away, but if anything leant back a little further, so that for a brief moment the curve of his shoulder rested against Thorin’s chest.

It was a warm comfort, a less desperate and grief-stricken one than the comfort they had shared the last time they had touched, and Bilbo couldn’t help but relish in it, in the familiarity of it, the sweetness that came from a feeling grown as much from friendship as from anything else.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly, and was a little startled when Thorin rested his chin on top of his head, for just a moment, ruffling the curls of his hair that were already knocked out of place by the heat.

“I am well,” he replied. “Better now, I think, than I was at the weekend.”

Bilbo nodded, a little absently.

For that, he could not blame Thorin.

“I wanted to thank you, again,” Thorin continued, his voice quiet. “But it feels sometimes that all I ever do is thank you. You brought my Grandfather back from his own introspection, and if that was not enough, you brought me out of my misery too, and looked after me when I was in a terrible state.”

Bilbo smiled, although Thorin could not see.

“And I will tell you, again,” he replied. “That you don’t need to thank me. Not for anything.”

He turned, abruptly, to face Thorin, who looked down at him with a strange expression, somewhere between hopeful and concerned.

“I meant what I said, you know. I’d do anything for you – anything for the both of you. I…” he trailed off, for a moment, and then he sighed. “If you still can’t work out what I feel for you, then you’re more of an idiot than I took you for.”

Thorin ducked his head, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I had hoped, at least,” he replied, quietly. “But I know that I don’t have a whole lot to offer, with everything else – and to me, at least, my family must always come first.”

Bilbo smiled.

“I am well aware of that, you know.”

Thorin was smiling at him again now, that same impossibly warm smile that made Bilbo’s chest flutter, that made his breath catch in his throat, that same gaze that was so full of feeling.

“My sister wanted me to invite you over to her house for dinner next week,” Thorin told him, his voice low and strangely intimate. “She says to tell you that since you’re already a part of the family, she’s rather annoyed at me for not having invited you before.”

Bilbo bit his lip, to stop himself from smiling. Family – well, that was something that he hadn’t had for quite a long time.

It might be nice, to be a part of something like that again.

“Would that be alright?” Thorin asked, his eyes keenly earnest behind his glasses, and Bilbo nodded, trying and failing to repress his smile.

“Aye,” he answered, leaning forward just enough to rest his forehead against Thorin’s shoulder for just a moment, to hide that impossibly broad smile. “I would like that, very much.”

“It wouldn’t be a very good first date,” Thorin said, with something of a smile. “But I’m afraid that-”

But he was cut off, quite suddenly, as Bilbo kissed him, his hands pressed against Thorin’s chest, up on tip-toes once more, in order to reach. To his gratification Thorin’s arms fell around him quite quickly, lifting him just enough to stop any ache for the reach. There was an edge to this kiss that their first had not had, a heat and a promise, of sorts, one that Bilbo was quite happy to accept, as wordless as it was.

Across the rows of plants, Thror called out to them, lifting up a tray of purple flowers for Bilbo’s inspection – he seemed perfectly at home here, around the plants and flowers, thinking of his garden, a place where once more he enjoyed being, now that he was not continuously disappointed with the state of it, now that he was unable to care for it. They pulled apart slowly, a little unwillingly, but when Bilbo went to walk over, Thorin caught hold of his hand, stopping him before he could, lifting it to his mouth, pressing a fleeting kiss to his knuckles before letting him go, the corner of his mouth turning upwards a little as he watched Bilbo go over to his Grandfather.

Thror winked at Bilbo, but said no more, even if he must have seen the exchange between the two of them: instead he just smiled down at the flowers, the broad blooms, the fragrant sweetness of them.

“I have bought you a gift, you know,” Thror said, quietly, and he raised his hand when Bilbo opened his mouth to protest. “No, no, it is a thanks. For finding my case, for looking after Thorin, for listening to so many of my stories. For everything, really.”

From his blazer he drew out a small box, wrapped in brown paper and a long line of crimson ribbon, and Bilbo stared at it for a moment.

“You both thank me all too much, you know,” he said quietly, as he undid the ribbon. “I don’t need it. I enjoy both of your company too much, you know, to quit on either of you right now.”

Thror was smiling at him, when he glanced up, a twinkle in his eye that just for now made him look much younger, more vibrant.

“Go on,” he said, when Bilbo seemed to hesitate. “Go on, open it.”

Bilbo pulled the wrapping off, he smile only growing a little as he saw what was within: a white box, sealed shut, the contents of which were displayed quite prominently on the front.

“You didn’t need to,” he said, a contentment that he had no name for welling up in his chest, making his throat tight for a moment.

“Thorin picked it out,” Thror told him. “He knows much more about these things than I do – but you did tell me, once, that you didn’t own one, and I seemed to have remembered that at least.”

Bilbo turned it over his hands, the weight of the compact camera an oddly satisfying one in his hands.

“I don’t,” he replied. “But I have grown a certain fondness for photographs lately, you know, and I think that it is high time that I start taking more.”

Thror nodded.

“There is no better way to remember those that you love,” he answered, a certain sadness in his tone, and a certain joy, too. “No better way to remember those moments that you have loved, too.”

Bilbo had seen the proof of that himself, and wondered if it was already charged, whether he could take it out and save this moment too, to capture it to keep, so that perhaps one day in the future he might look back on it – at Thorin’s shy smile, at Thror’s gentle expression in the sunlight, at the blooming flowers spread all around them, a sea of colour in the summer evening. Because this, he was sure, would be a day that he would like to look back on, one that in the future he would smile to remember.

“I do so like a good story,” Thror said, as much to himself as to Bilbo. “And, you know, yours will be a rather sweet story to tell, in the future.”

Bilbo could feel a blush rising on his throat, but secretly, he couldn’t help but agree.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been based, to a certain extent, on recent events in my own life. I appreciate that everyone's experiences with dementia are varied, that it doesn't always present in the same way, and that people cope with in very different ways, too. This was not something that I intended to present lightly, and comes solely from my own experience. I apologise if you disagree with my portrayal, or if it bothers you in any way.
> 
> As always, feel free to come and chat to me on [tumblr](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/) .
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